


might have inhaled you

by crookedqueen



Series: howling ghosts – they reappear [steve finds him, every time] [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bond AU - Freeform, Crossover, James Bond - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 02:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1727912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedqueen/pseuds/crookedqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>au || steve and bucky as 007 and 008</p><p>“Pity. You’ve allowed Bond to convince you that there was never an Agent 008.”</p><p>"You’re telling me there was?"</p><p>"I’m telling you that there is a reason why Mr. Bond doesn’t sleep at night."</p>
            </blockquote>





	might have inhaled you

i.

Before it was Bond, it was Rogers.

Squint well enough and that shaken martini in his palm will darken into a Bristol corner store’s best pop. [ _Second row to the left_ , Bucky used to brag. _Third from the back is always where they keep the best one, kid._ ]

007 stirs his drink to the battered beat of an old song. Two seats down, another man pats his friend on the shoulder, boisterously calls, “Steve.” A clench, a sting. “Pal, how ya doing?”

007 smiles at the bartender, slaps down a fifty dollar bill, thinks, _What’s the point of living if you’re so damn good at being a ghost?_

Everywhere he goes, the graveyard sings.

ii.

Ask M and she might tell you how tightly she gripped his shoulder at the funeral.

“They’ll need your statement on 008, your name for the records, Rogers.”

Steve stared straight forward at the flag as it bled into hardwood. He’d said nothing for a long time, felt the S and T and E of his first name slip down his throat, choking him for a moment before sinking into oblivion. He curled his fist, wiped wet fingers across his brow. Under his fingernails, the cemetery dirt was still fresh.

“Tell them the wrong agent fell off that bridge.”

“Steve – “

“James, ma’am,” the agent had whispered. “Tell them my name is James.”

There wasn’t the patch of a jacket to rub between his fingertips, a broken tile from their shit flat in Bristol. There’d been nothing but the way the skin under Bucky’s ear smelled, the way they’d taught each other how to grip a gun, how to wipe blood off a suit, how to wipe a stain off a conscience.

Steve shoved the name in his pocket and never looked back.

iii.

Ten years.

He spends ten years with a ghost draped across his back, wearing James Buchanan Barnes as James Bond. 007 had always been the introvert, a sharp attention to detail, a way with loyalty, a thumb to smudge the blood off of 008’s bottom lip.

Now, the women whisper _James_ as they break beneath him, a quiet prayer to the one who died too young.

Silent, mouthing against a pale shoulder or a freckled cheek, 007 clenches his eyes shut and says the name too.

iv.

“The boys were best friends,” is all M says of it. “Slightly obsessed with each other, perhaps. But the best agents in the Service? That is irrefutable.”

“Some men will defend a nation to their deaths,” Moneypenny murmurs, shaking the dust off an old photograph. The boys are bloody-knuckled and smiling on M-I6 grounds, a Beretta 418 in one loose hand.

“Some,” M says, crisp and seemingly unfeeling, “another man.”

“He knows then,” Moneypenny says, casts the photograph aside. “That Agent Barnes may still be alive?”

v.

Operation Winter Soldier ends in broken words and bloodshed.

They recover the former agent from an island with no name. The burnt sand and ashen bricks seem to match the man.

008 murmurs incoherent words against 007’s soldier, holds the point of a knife to his pulse point, eyes glazed over, hair falling into his face.

“Alright,” 007 murmurs, curls his fingers against the nape of 008’s neck. “Alright.” He drops the Beretta by the side of his head, swiping metal across the familiar moon scar on the ridge of his knuckle.

008 huffs a breath, his grip weakens. He doesn’t take his eyes off the Beretta, not for several heartbeats.

“Alright, Bucky,” 007 says, leans into the knife. “If I get to die as Steve.”

The knife only nips 007’s throat when 008 drops it.

The tear gathers dirt as it rolls down his face.

vi.

007 presses his cheek to white tiled walls and inhales the stale smell of almost-death.

“He doesn’t know you.”

007 curls a fist.

“Bond, he was tortured. Tortured for years before we dismantled Hydra. He isn’t the agent he used to be. Your partner is still dead, under that bridge – “ Moneypenny, who never gave it to him easy, murmurs, “008 is still dead.”

“He doesn’t know a James Bond,” she finally hears him rasp in response.

“No – “

“Tell him that Agent Steve Rogers wants to see him.”

vii.

Bond leans into the bar, the two zeros stand loyal by his name as a cruel reminder of nothing at all. Strands of blond stick out from his quaffed hair-do, he fingers the bruise his ex-partner left beneath his cheek until it barely hurts.

“Can I get you something?” the bartender chirps. 007 glances up at the bright-eyed young boy and sees fireworks over a dirty rooftop, sweaty palms sliding off each other at the naval academy, back pressed to burning back, guns pointed at opposite sides.

No one’s ever told him what comes after the end of the world.

“Two martinis. Shaken,” a voice murmurs behind him. “Not stirred.”

007 rolls his shoulders back when the man sits beside him. They bend into each other, catch every signal: the twitch of skin, the jerk of a brow. He’s forgotten what it feels like, to do something other than roam, to be anyone other than Bond.

008, hair tied back and slick down the back of his neck, has a jagged cut that runs along his neck and face. An arm is gone.

He fills the suit better than any man in the room.

viii.

“We can’t both be James,” 008 finally says later, his nose pressed to his partner’s temple. The night sky rolls with the decency to look away.

008 smiles, “Punk.”

When they cross a bridge, suit jackets in hand, dress shirts rumpled, 007 folds his hand into his.

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: This is the first real thing I've written for my golden boys, incarnations of Achilles and Patroclus, to be honest with you. I'm nearly sick with my obsession with them, so I hope you all enjoyed the first in my stream of Stucky AU adventures as much as I loved writing it.
> 
> This was originally posted on Tumblr: http://crooked-queen.tumblr.com/post/87461526444/au-steve-and-bucky-as-007-and


End file.
